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Toronto taxi drivers use phone apps to find fares

By Alex BallingallStaff Reporter

Mon., Sept. 24, 2012

With the fresh air from the forested ravine along Mt. Pleasant Rd. whooshing in the window of his jet black taxi, Rotimi Odunaiya is the picture of contentment. The longtime cabbie is one of the first to commit to a smartphone innovation that’s shaking up the local taxi scene. And he’s loving it.

“It’s beautiful,” says Odunaiya, 47, pointing to the iPhone secured in a plastic holster on his dashboard. “This is going to change the whole industry.”

Rotimi Odunaiya, 47, was one of the first drivers to sign up exclusively with Toronto’s newest cab company, Hailo. The London-based firm uses a smartphone application to connect customers with drivers. (Alex Ballingall / TORONTO TAR)

He’s referring to Hailo, Toronto’s newest cab company, which uses a smartphone application rather than a centralized dispatch centre to connect drivers with passengers.

Alongside Uber, a San Francisco-based tech company that makes a similar application, the company says it’s heralding a new day for the taxi industry. The technology promises to put more money in cabbies’ pockets while making their quest for fare-paying customers more efficient and safe, according to proponents.

“We’re expanding the size of the pie for the taxi industry in Toronto,” says Andrew Macdonald, general manager of Uber in Toronto, which is giving away free taxi rides of up to $20 to anyone who uses its app until just before midnight Wednesday.

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“Drivers get excited about us,” he says. “This is the way the future is going to happen.”

The Uber and Hailo app systems work similarly, the main difference being that Uber isn’t a licensed cab company, just a smartphone app available to drivers and taxi riders.

To use it, you download the program to your phone and create a user account with your credit card number. When you want a ride, you simply open the app and tell it to find the nearest cab. A map shows exactly where the cab is and how long it will take to reach you. The app also provides the driver’s name and phone number.

Once the ride is over, the fare is automatically charged to the credit card on the account.

Kristine Hubbard, operations manager with Beck Taxi, a cab brokerage with more than 4,000 drivers, welcomes the arrival of the upstart taxi companies, particularly Hailo, a licensed taxi broker as of August this year. She says it has forced Beck and other established firms to work on their own apps.

“We can decide to complain about people bringing in new technology — or we can develop our own,” she says.

In U.S. cities such as New York, app-based cab companies have run up against municipal bylaws restricting dispatch systems from directly connecting drivers with customers. The Taxicab, Limousine and Paratransit Association in the U.S. considers Uber a “rogue” taxi service, arguing that passengers have no assurance their drivers are qualified cabbies since Uber is not a licensed taxi broker.

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The City of Toronto’s Municipal Licensing and Standards Division has taken the same view. Director of licensing Bruce Robertson says anyone taking calls from the public for taxis must be a licensed broker, and that the city is planning to take Uber to court over the matter.

“It’s consumer protection,” he says. “You want to be sure that the driver who shows up has a licence.”

Macdonald, Uber’s manager in Toronto, insists the company has rigorous checks for the drivers it enlists, and is in no way skirting the law.

“A cab driver, or anyone else, absolutely could not just download the app and use it in their own car. There are tons of safeguards in place to prevent that,” he says.

Louis Seta, a 30-year veteran cab driver who helped establish U.K.-based Hailo in Toronto, says cabbies should be enthusiastic about the new technology.

The apps allow drivers to avoid paying monthly dues to the traditional brokerage companies, which charge around $500 per month to use their dispatch systems and established brand power. Instead, Hailo takes a 15 per cent cut of every transaction (Uber doesn’t disclose how much it takes).

Odunaiya says eliminating monthly dues and the greater efficiency of the Hailo system help him make 20 to 40 per cent more than he did with the traditional brokerages.

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